


along the back and forth

by shuofthewind



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ace Themes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic!Rey, Awkward Romance, Cassian Andor: Sweater Addict, Demiromantic Demisexual Cassian Andor, Demiromantic Greysexual Jyn Erso, F/F, F/M, Foster Care, Foster Mom!Mechanic!Jyn, Jyn Erso Does Not Make Good Decisions, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Past Relationship(s), Rogue One Is The A(ce) Team, Teacher!Cassian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:50:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: Four years ago, Jyn met Cassian in a random bar, and liked him too much to not run away. Things she's liked have never gone well for her. She tells herself it was the right thing to do. She knows she's probably wrong.Four years ago, Cassian met Jyn in a bar he's never been able to visit again, and spent ten months waiting for her to call before trying to move on. He has never quite succeeded at the latter.Now, she's a foster mom, and he's teaching her kids.Yeah. It'sthatawkward.





	1. Chapter 1

"No,” says Jyn, without looking up from her phone.

Finn scoffs. “You don’t even know what I  _have._ ”

“I know it’s a no.”

“You  _suck_ ,” says Finn, but he puts it back, whatever it is. “It’s a party. Parties mean cake.”

“And you’ve had three pieces.” She peers at him through her bangs. “I’m not paying for fillings, Finn.”

“I don’t need fillings,” says Finn. “And I’ve had two pieces.”

“You’ve had three,” says Jyn, in the  _don’t push me_  voice, and Finn just scoffs. Finn’s never been scared of her the way other foster kids have been. She must not be all that intimidating, considering his situation. “I’ve been keeping track. So has Rey.”

Rey, sitting in the chair next to Jyn, offers a fist bump. Jyn knocks their knuckles together, and goes back to her emails.

“You’re killing my game,” says Finn.

“Since when do you have game?” says Rey, and there they go. It’s more soothing than anything, to be honest. Rey and Finn never actually fight—they bicker, but they’ve never been angry at each other that Jyn’s seen, not in the full year since she took them on, and so the pair of them playing snap and snarl just means occasionally reaching out and snagging Rey by the back of her uniform skirt to keep her from bouncing right off her feet.

Rey’s overstimulated, she thinks. She's fidgeting the way she always does when she gets overstimulated, rocking a little from side to side. Finn’s tired, even though he's trying to hide it. And Jyn’s done. Her patience with this event ran out about five minutes after it started, but parent participation is a big thing here, and if she leaves people will notice. Sitting in the corner going through her emails, at least, is more acceptable. And it keeps people from asking if she’s  _really_ the mother of the Juvenile Hall Hell Twins.

She turns her phone on sleep mode by accident, and swears.

“Can we go?” Rey flops into the seat next to her again, draws her knee up to her chest. Another mother hisses when Rey’s skirt slips up to her hips, and Jyn absently nudges at her leg, knocks her foot back to the floor. “My head hurts.”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Do you have the stuff?”

“Bag,” says Jyn, without looking up, and Rey drags Jyn’s messenger bag out from under the chair to find the fidget cube and her noise-canceling headphones. “If I meet one more idiot I’m going to stab them.”

Finn says, “Don’t do that.”

“Make me,” says Jyn, and taps him in the ankle with the toe of her shoe. “You finish the list?”

“Everybody but Mr. A,” says Finn, happily. Jyn taps Rey on the shoulder, flashes five fingers— _five minutes_ —and then shoves her phone back into her pocket. “He said he couldn’t come, but I saw him over there, he’s the last.”

“Is this the sweaters one or the blind one?”

“Sweaters,” says Finn. “He always has great sweaters.”

“So you’ve said.” She’s not entirely sure if Finn has a crush on his—chemistry?—teacher, or if he’s just starry-eyed about the sweaters themselves, but she’s  _sure_ she’s heard the name  _Mr. A_ being tossed around the living room once or twice. Though it might have been in context of Finn getting detention. She can’t quite remember. “Go say hi, then.” 

“You coming?”

Jyn looks at him, and lifts one eyebrow.

“Jyn,” says Finn. “C’mon.”

“I said one more idiot.”

“Mr. A isn’t an idiot.” Finn, thirteen and suddenly remembering that, gropes for words. “He’s—weird. He’s kinda weird.”

“Finn.”

“He’s your kinda weird.”

“Nobody’s my kind of weird,” says Jyn. “And I don’t need dating advice from a kid who eats three pieces of cake in fifteen minutes and then swears it has no effect on his game.”

“Oh my  _god_ ,” says Finn, and when she nudges him with her elbow he rocks back and forth like she’s shoved him off a cliff. “C’mon. Please?”

Pros and cons don’t take long.  _Pro: get it done, get out faster. Con: make yet another enemy of your foster son’s fleet of teachers. Not that it’s hard._ “Fine,” says Jyn. “Where?”

Finn’s smile could battery power the sun, she thinks. Add that to the list of pros.

There’s a knot of teachers over by the buffet table (picked clean by middle school-aged, humanoid crows), all gaggled together and laughing and whispering about private school education things that make Jyn’s teeth go on edge. Finn melts away from her about halfway between her wallflower position and the table, slips into the labyrinth to go root out his teacher— _biology? Lit? I don’t remember_ —and Jyn drags the phone back out. Two emails from Bodhi, those she’s already read, a bunch of texts from Saw, one or two from Mara, and—

“This is my mom,” says Finn, in the stumbly way he has when he’s excited, and Jyn looks up from her phone to correct him when she stops.

Sweaters, yeah. Sweaters, and dark eyes, and a surprised little  _O_  to his mouth, and Jyn wants to die. He looks almost the same as he did four years— _four? Four_ —ago, just slightly better put together. Not quite as disheveled as a last year uni student balancing on the edge of a sidewalk at two in the morning, laughing like he’s never met anybody as funny, pressing a scrap of paper into her hand.

_Call me, please. Please._

She still has the number, somewhere. She’d never picked up the phone.

Cassian’s eyes flicker, and then his face closes down. A small thin smile settles like an angry cat on his mouth. “You’re Finn and Rey’s mother.”

“Foster-mother,” says Jyn, through tacky lips, and looks at the hand he offers, wondering if there’s a bomb in it. Finally, she takes it, shakes once. “Jyn. Erso.”

Finn, oblivious, rolls his eyes. “ _Mom._ ”

“I don’t know who Mom is,” says Jyn. Her tongue is numb. “I’m Jyn.”

“Jyn, come  _on_.” He fidgets with his blazer. “She doesn’t like to be called Mom, I told you. She said she’s too young to have two thirteen year olds.”

“And I am,” says Jyn.

Finn pokes his tongue out at her.

“It’s good to finally meet you,” says Cassian. There’s a hint of  _something_ in his face that she can’t make out without a shot of vodka and traipsing through the city past midnight because last call sounded and they still had too much to say. “Finn and Rey both have a lot to say about you.”

“And they talk a lot about you, too,” says Jyn. She wants to  _die_. “You’re—”

“My history teacher,” says Finn. His eyes have begun to narrow.

“Rey’s in my homeroom class,” says Cassian at the same time.  _Oh, God, fuck, God, fuck, fuck me, fuck—_  “We’ll probably be meeting up again in a few weeks. Parent-teacher events.”

 _Please, someone, vaporize me right now._ “Right,” says Jyn, and looks down at her phone in her hand. She’s surprised she hasn’t dropped it. “Finn, I think Rey’s had enough. We should probably go.”

“Yeah,” says Finn. He gives her one last beady look. “Sure.”

“Good to meet you,” says Jyn.  _Again._

“Pleasure,” says Cassian, and shoves his hand back into the pocket of his wooly jumper. “I’m sure.”    


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for bullying, fights, racism.

There’s a system, in their apartment. Jyn wakes up last, comes home last, and eats last, and she’s more than okay with that, if she stops to think about it. She spent so much time, as a teenager, in and out of juvenile detention and foster homes and a sixteen month stint of homelessness, not being sure if she was  _going_ to eat every day; she’s more than glad to make sure Finn and Rey eat before she does, and sleep before she does.

“You act like an angry mama cat,” Bodhi says one weekend. He’s come over for lunch and to take Finn out to the movie theater, as a Big Brother does. “You stare at them while they eat.“

“I want to make sure they have food.”

“They do, you know. Even if you’re terrible at cooking.”

Jyn doesn’t look up from her book. “What’s your point?”

 “Maybe hold off on the staring?” Bodhi says. “It worries people. They think you’re going to tear their faces off.”

Right now, though? She  _wants_ to tear faces off.

Jyn is the last one home, usually, but tonight the restaurant is closing early, and she’s home by seven pm. She’s only just eased her shoes off when she notices the scrap of bloody gauze on the kitchen table, the still-open first aid kit and the isopropyl alcohol uncapped. Finn and Rey are nowhere to be seen, but there’s a telltale scrambling for cover coming from the living room area, hissed voices and muffled swearwords. Something clutches at her ribs, torques them apart like a spreader in an autopsy room.

“Kitchen,” she says after a moment, trying to swallow through the desert in her throat. “Now.”

Finn’s the bleeding one. He’s a stocky kid, Finn, and he hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he and Rey are shoulder to shoulder when they both slink back into the kitchen area, her knuckles bruised and cracked, his nose still bleeding. The shock of toilet paper against his skin and the blush of blood on the material is bad enough, really, but on top of that he’s limping, and he flinches when Rey touches his ribs, like someone’s kicked him.

Jyn breathes in, very carefully through her nose, and says, “Explain.”

Rey and Finn burst at once.

“Outside in the quad—”

“It wasn’t anything, Rey—”

“—accused him of stealing—”

“—didn’t do anything—”

“—behind the dumpster—”

“—we were walking home—”

“—eight of them—”

“Rey shouldn’t have—”

She lifts a hand. Both of them stop immediately. Rey’s been crying; she’s picking at her hands, and swaying back and forth on her feet, and her eyes are red and sore-looking. So are her hands. Still, the rest of her seems fairly unmarked. When Jyn drags a chair around the table, sits down and dumps her purse on the floor, they both flinch again.

“Come here,” she says, after she gets ahold of herself, and they look at each other before Finn takes the plunge, creeping forward until he’s standing right at her knees. Jyn touches his shoulder, light and careful, and then sorts through the first aid kit. She feels—she knows what anger feels like, but this is  _cold_ , whatever this is. Coiling into her marrow, spreading hoarfrost over her bones. She finds a scrap of clean gauze, and wets it down with alcohol. “Eight of them?”

“I told Rey to go,” Finn blurts, and then hisses when she touches the gauze to the split on his cheek. His eye is going to swell up, just from the look of it, and there’s blood crusted in his eyebrow. “She didn’t listen and now she’s going to—”

“You can’t just tell me to  _go_ —”

“One at a time,” says Jyn, and Rey starts rocking faster. “You said a dumpster?”

“Behind the school,” says Rey, before Finn can open his mouth. “There’s those dumspters and we usually cut back there to get to Cushner Street faster but—”

“Who?” says Jyn, still feeling far too cold.

“Armie Hux,” says Rey. Finn winces. “Couple of others.”

“Eight of them?”

“Some of them were upperclassmen, I don’t—”

“It doesn’t  _matter_ ,” says Finn, and Jyn’s throat gets so tight she can’t speak. “They’ll just say I started it, it doesn’t  _matter_ —”

“It’s not  _right_ , Finn—”

“Rey,” says Jyn. “Can you go in my room for me? There’s a box under my bed, will you grab it?”

Rey blinks a few times, derailed. “What?”

“Box,” says Jyn. She puts the pinkish gauze on the table, and hands a fresh piece to Finn. “Hold that under your nose, Finn. The box, under the bed. Made of wood. Go grab it for me?”

Rey darts a look at Finn, and bolts off. Jyn doesn’t say anything for a while. She dabs at the split on Finn’s cheek, the gash in his eyebrow. He’s holding his ribs with one hand, coiled around himself, and there are splits in his knuckles, too. A deep gouge.

“Tooth?” she says, and waits until he looks up at her.

“What?”

“Your hand.”

Finn looks at it, and flexes his fingers. His eyebrows crush together, and then he hisses. The split’s opened up again, and it’s bleeding. “Shit.”

Jyn takes his hand, and finds a fresh piece of gauze.

“I didn’t take Hux’s laptop,” Finn says, in a hard little voice. “I didn’t.”

“I know,” says Jyn, without looking away from his hand. It’s deep, the toothmark. It might leave a scar. “Like you need a laptop.”

Finn huffs something that might be half a laugh. It ends in a hiccup. He’s thirteen, and trying to be brave, and the hard shell’s come back a bit, the one from the first three months he’d stayed with her and Rey. Jyn dabs a bit of antibacterial onto the gouge, and digs out a four-legged bandaid for his knuckle.

“Did any teacher see any of this?” she says.

Finn shakes his head. “It was off-campus.”

“Did they say anything to you today? The kids, not the teachers.”

He’s quiet for a long time. “Today, no. Before, sometimes.”

“What kind of stuff?” Jyn doesn’t look at him. “Foster care stuff?”

He shrugs.

“Racial stuff?”

Finn fidgets, and then says, “Sometimes.”

“Teachers ever hear any of it?”

He shakes his head again. “He’s quiet.”

Jyn nods. She clips a bit of wound tape, leans back. “This will hurt.”

Finn doesn’t flinch when she has to pinch the split in his eyebrow together, just hisses through his teeth as she presses the tape down. He says, “Our homeroom teacher likes him, she won’t believe me anyway, I don’t want Rey to get in trouble—”

“She won’t,” says Jyn, without inflection. “Neither of you are in trouble.”

“There was a fight, I kicked Hux in the face—”

“You protected yourself,” she says, and something starts to wobble in Finn, just a little bit. He swallows a few times. “You aren’t in trouble, love.”

“But if they—”

“You aren’t in trouble,” she says again. “I’ll make sure of it. Nobody is going anywhere, I promise you, Finn.” 

Finn blinks furiously. Her eyes burn. Jyn puts the wound tape down, and awkwardly lifts her arms, and Finn  _lunges_ for her, the way he never has before, really, his shoulders heaving like he’s trying to throw a cat off his back. He clutches at the back of her shirt, and rasps something into her collar, completely unintelligible, something that might be close to  _Mom_  again. She’s never been maternal in her life, and doesn’t know how it works, doesn’t have any idea, but it’s easy, in a way, to do this. He’s  _Finn_. He’s her kid.

“You’re okay,” she says, and Finn rasps again. “Nobody’s getting in trouble. You’re not going anywhere, love. It’s okay.”

When she looks up, Rey’s watching in tears.

.

.

.

Cassian’s running late, and he’s pissed.

He’d made it out of the house on time. He’d even made onto the yellow line on time, and found a seat by the door that meant he wouldn’t have to heave his backpack full of biographies of Pancho Villa (which had been misdirected to his  _home_  for some reason, and not to the school library like they were supposed to be) over his shoulder for the full forty-minute commute. And then, of course, as is typical of the metro system, the yellow line had stalled, which meant that he’d had to take three buses and walk half a mile before the gates of Yavin Preparatory Academy finally came into sight, an hour after his first class had been scheduled to start, and twenty minutes before his second. He’s late, and he’s pissed, and he hasn’t had coffee yet, and he’s going to get a lecture from the vice-principal about getting a car even though he can’t drive, and he’s only just started up the steps into the main admin building when he realizes he forgot his school keys on his kitchen counter, and that Jyn Erso’s getting out of the beat-up car in the nearest parking space.  

She looks—statuesque. But not like a traditional romantic statue, he thinks. Like one of the ancient Greek statues of soldiers in the midst of battle, with the same fierce, hawkish face, like she’s about to ram a spear into someone’s guts. The shade of her lipstick just makes it worse, and the sharpness of her mouth. Very different from the uncomfortable woman at the back-to-school fete, huddling into her hoodie like it’ll make her invisible, or the woman in the bar four years ago who’d actually smiled and propped her chin in her hand and nodded and said things he’d never heard out of another person’s mouth before. This woman on the pavement is about to  _fight_ , and quite honestly, despite all the things he’s thought over the past four years, he’s really hoping it won’t be him.

She stops dead, just for a moment, at the base of the stairs. Jyn blinks.

“Hi,” she says, after an awkward beat.

_I’ve never been able to talk to anybody the way I could talk to you that night and you never called,_  he wants to say. Then:  _I’ve spent four years trying to forget you existed because for some reason you keep haunting me._ Then:  _You shouldn’t have been able to hurt me the way you did after one conversation but it took me months to get over it and I still can’t go back to that bar._  Then:  _get the hell out of my life._ Then:  _none of that is appropriate._

Cassian realizes, suddenly, that there’s sweat trickling down the back of his neck. “Hi,” he says, and feels incredibly stupid. “Did you schedule a meeting for Rey?”

“I’m here to talk to the principal.” Her mouth creases, and gets sharper. “Do you need help?”

He has a heavy backpack and a just as heavy bag dangling off his shoulder and he’s missing his keys and he wants to curl up under the nearest car and possibly die of misplaced embarrassment, but he says, “I’m fine.”

“Right.”

They both stand there on the stairwell for a second.

“I have to meet the principal,” she says again, and Cassian realizes he has one hand on the door. “So—”

“Right,” he says, and pulls the door open. This could, possibly, be  _more_ awkward, but he’s not sure how at the moment. “Right—”

Jyn opens her mouth, shuts it again, and then says, “Do you know a boy named Armie Hux?”

Cassian blinks. “What?”

“Hux.”

“Yes, but—I don’t see why you’re asking.”

“Nothing,” she says. When she slips past him into the school, he catches something like vanilla in her hair, and hates himself. “Thanks.”

There is no way he’s going to be able to focus on work today.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: referenced racism, some major assholery, and K telling someone to fuck their mother in Mandarin.

"You are acting strange,” says Kei.

Cassian doesn’t look up from his coffee. Two sugars, milk, and all the essays from his eighth grade world history class, and he still apparently does not have enough of a shield to keep Kei from commenting. Then again, nothing keeps Kei from commenting. It’d be like trying to stop a tsunami with a plastic spork. “I’m tired. It’s been a long week.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

Cassian lifts one shoulder in a shrug, and uncaps his red pen. “Long week.”

Kei scoffs. “That is fallacious.”

He scratches out a misspelled word, and says, “Sure.”

“You are humoring me,” says Kei. “Do you not want to discuss what is making you act so strange?”

“I’m at work,” says Cassian. “So not really at the moment, no.”

“I see.” Kei sips at his tea. “I hope you are aware that no matter how unpalatable I may find hearing about your romantic escapades, if there are issues, I would be obliged to listen.”

Cassian can’t decide if he wants to laugh or choke.  How does one say  _the one person I never thought I’d see again in my lifetime is apparently the mother of two of my favorite students?_ “There are no romantic escapades.”

“Of course.” Kei peers down his long straight nose. “You’ll note that I used the word  _obliged_  because I have no desire to listen to your romantic escapades—”

“There are no escapades—”

“—I have a duty as your friend to listen to your problems and tell you how to fix them. Out of the two of us, I have more common sense, after all.” He sips his tea, and then adds, “Indubitably.”

“Indubitably,” says Cassian, and writes  _clunky sentence—rephrase_ in the margin of the paper he’s working on.

“Hey,” says Lumiya, over by the refrigerator. “Kei, I swear, if you took my lunch again—”

“Why would I ever steal your lunch?” says Kei. “They almost always smell terrible. Besides, even if I did, you avail yourself of my tea without my consent. It would be fair game.”

“That tea’s communal.”

“ _Cao ni ma_ ,” says Kei, and does not smile. Lumiya huffs, and wanders off.

“Do I want to know what that means?” Cassian flips the page on the essay.

“Is that a rhetorical question? I do not know what you may or may not want, Cassian. You are aware of this.”

“It was rhetorical.” He taps his pen to his mouth. Rose Tico can usually write something much more sophisticated than this.  _Late night or bad week?_ “Forget it.”

“I shall not, but if I must change topics.” Kei thieves a fry out of Cassian’s bag of fast food. “Mothma is displeased today.”

“I’m trying to grade, you realize.”

“You are more than capable of listening and grading at once.” He takes another fry. “There was an incident with a parent yesterday morning. Apparently a boy in Lumiya’s homeroom accused one of the foster children of theft.”

Cassian nearly puts his pen through the paper. “Don’t call them that, Kei.”

“It’s a logical descriptor. And I do not have classes with them. Neither of them have any inclination to take Mandarin.” Kei sniffs. “Besides, I do not know their names. I do not bother to remember students I do not teach.”

“Finn and Rey Erso.” Both of them have been absent from school for two days.  _Tuesday and today._ And Jyn had shown up to see Mothma on Tuesday, for some reason. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“Apparently there was a fight. The foster mother spent two hours in Mothma’s office and emerged very displeased. I observed it personally. I had to use the photocopier in the administration office, and I could hear the shouting through the wall.” Kei steals a third fry, and then a fourth, and finally Cassian shoves the bag over to him. He’s not hungry anymore, anyway. “Both of the foster children were involved, as well as Armitage Hux and a handful of ninth graders.”

“I should have been informed. Rey is in my homeroom class.” And she’s bright and sweet and with just enough of a stubborn streak that it….doesn’t surprise him that she threw herself into a fight alongside Finn. “Why didn’t anyone inform me?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” asks Kei, quite seriously.

Cassian does not answer. He leaves the staff room.

Mon Mothma’s been the principal of Yavin Prep for almost ten years, and from what he’s gleaned from old yearbooks, her office has never changed in all that time. Same books, same globe, same broad windows. Mothma looks the same as she has in every photograph, short red hair and lines around her mouth. She lifts one finger when he comes in, and says, “I’ll call you back,” in to the phone before settling it back in its cradle.

“I was going to call you in during the lunch hour,” she says, before Cassian can open his mouth. “So get off your high horse, if you please.”

He deflates. He can’t help it. People don’t just tell Mon Mothma no. “I only just heard about it. But Rey is in my homeroom, and Finn Erso is in my world history class, I should have been told—”

“It’s complicated,” says Mothma, and rubs at her temples. “Honestly, I assumed you would have heard about it before now. It’s all over the school, and you’re usually the teacher I can trust to have his ear to the ground.”

Cassian opens his mouth, and closes it again. He sits down. “I’ve—been distracted. Lately.”

“Does this have anything to do with why you were late yesterday?”

“Not in the least.” Just—why he hadn’t been able to focus much in class afterwards. “What happened?”  

Mothma sweeps her thumbs over the marks beneath her eyes. “Depends on who you ask.”

“Mon—”

“Apparently a group of high school boys led by Armitage Hux jumped the Ersos on their way home from school on Monday. Ms. Erso claims it was an incident of bullying. Mrs. Hux says that Finn Erso stole her son’s laptop, and he and his friends came to ask Finn to give it back when he and Rey attacked.”

“Bullshit,” says Cassian.

Mothma frowns. “Cassian.”

“I know those kids.” He curls his hands around his kneecaps, digging his nails into his jeans. “The Ersos—they’re good kids. Good students. They’re not thieves, and they’re certainly not stupid enough to pick a fight with high schoolers twice their size.”

“I know that, but you have to admit, Cassian, they’ve not assimilated well. They’re rowdy, they’re disruptive in class, they both come from—fairly unique circumstances—”

“Are you saying that because they’re foster kids–” He stops, before he can add  _and minority students_. He knows Mothma better than that. She might be oblivious sometimes, but she’d never say something that outwardly bigoted. “They’ve been burned by other schools. They have  _reasons_.” 

“But those reasons aren’t helping them at all at the moment. They both have histories of violence, and in a he said she said situation there’s going to be enormous pressure from the board to examine this in a manner that falls in line with what the PTA wants.”

Cassian shifts his hands off his knees.

“Don’t make that face at me, Andor.” Mothma sighs. “There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow with Armitage Hux and his mother and the Ersos. Ten AM. I’d like you to be there.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” She rubs at her eyes. “Hopefully this doesn’t end in an expulsion.”

That’s it, apparently. He’s not going to get anything more. Cassian stands, and turns to go.

“If it helps,” says Mothma. “I’m inclined to believe Ms. Erso about the circumstances.”

“Good,” says Cassian. His teeth hurt. “Because those kids need all the support they can get.”

.

.

.

There’s an accident on the main street leading into the school, which means they’re almost—but not quite—late when Jyn finally puts the truck into park and says, “I know this is a good school, but it looks a little like juvie.”

Rey snorts hard through her nose. She’s been quiet all morning, clicking away at her fidget cube instead of talking, the way she does when she’s worried and not wanting to admit it. Finn, between them in the front seat, says, “And you’d know, Black Cat.”

“Don’t test me, monster. I went in once, I can do it again.” She turns off the engine. “Any nasty surprises either of you have forgotten to mention?”

Finn and Rey look at each other. Rey rocks back and forth once, and then says, “No?”

Of course it’s a question. She  _really_ doesn’t like that it’s a question. Jyn sighs. “Fine. Out of the car. And fix your tie, Finn. If you don’t make a good impression then I’m going to have to punch somebody in the administration to make sure they don’t notice and I already jammed my knuckles in a motor once this week.”

Her pick-up’s old and shitty, and she feels….grimy, in comparison to the other cars around. Yavin Prep might look like a juvenile detention center from the outside, but it’s an expensive school, and all the cars in the lot are  _pricey_. There’s a reason she works two jobs, and it’s to make sure both Finn and Rey can stay here and hopefully get a decent chance at maybe, someday, going to college if they want to.

Bodhi would say she’s being stubborn. Bodhi  _has_ said she’s being stubborn, for not accessing the trust her father left her. Jyn would rather light herself on fire than have anything to do with her father, though, so even if she’s being stubborn, she’ll take bone-deep exhaustion and too much coffee over touching Galen Erso’s money before she has no other choice.

The administration office is a step up from all the admin offices she’d had to slink into, during her school years. There are actual paintings on the wall, not prints. A nice carpet. The fax machine isn’t trashed. The chairs aren’t cheap. Jyn can’t sit. She stays standing, and taps at the edge of her phone with a stubby fingernail until Rey nudges the side of her shoe and hisses for her to stop. Which makes it worse, because she should be the one calm, right now, not Rey and Finn. She catches the secretary watching them, and stares at the woman until Mrs. Naberrie (at least, according to her nameplate) has to drop her gaze to the desktop.

“Jyn,” says Finn, and tips his head to the wall. “Chill.”

“I’m chill,” says Jyn.

Finn rolls his eyes, and starts tapping his foot on the floor.

“Mrs. Erso?” It’s Mrs. Naberrie. She’s half on her feet, now, tucking gray, curling hair behind her ear. “If you want, I can take you and Finn in to the office, now.”

“It’s Miss,” says Jyn. She shoves her phone into her jacket pocket. “Thanks.”

Rey tucks her hand into Jyn’s pocket, too, just for a second, and hums.

Mon Mothma must be in her late forties, a small, slim woman with bright red hair and dips around her mouth that seem more like frown lines than dimples. Her handshake’s firm, without ceremony. There’s already a mother and child in the principal’s office (and she never, ever,  _ever_ thought she’d be back in a principal’s office again, but that’s how it goes, apparently): a redheaded, freckled woman and a redheaded, freckled boy, both with sour-milk skin and tilted mouths like they’ve smelled something off. There’s a vile dark bruise on Armie’s jaw, and his lip is split, but—and she feels  _vicious_ when she thinks this, still cold inside—not nearly so bad as Finn’s injuries. Because  _Armie Hux_ hadn’t been attacked by eight boys at once.

Jyn does not offer her hand. Neither does Armie Hux’s mother. Jyn puts her hand on Finn’s shoulder, instead.

She notices Cassian last, somehow. Maybe because he’s lurking near the window, staring out of them with his hands locked behind his back, strict as a soldier. Jyn focuses hard on Mothma, and refuses to pay attention.

“Thank you for coming in, both of you.” Mothma drops back into her seat, and folds her hands on the table. “I understand that the situation is complicated—”

“Nothing is  _complicated_  about this,” says Armie’s mother. Her lip curls. “I want that boy expelled for attacking my son.”

Finn does not flinch. He doesn’t look up. It’s only because Jyn has her hand on his shoulder that she can tell he’s shaking, just a little.

“That’s not the purpose of this meeting, Mrs. Hux.” Mothma taps her forefinger to her desk. “The goal here is to come to an understanding. Considering the circumstances—”

“There is no  _considering_ of anything, Ms. Mothma.” Mrs. Hux shakes her hair back out of her face, and tucks one leg over the other. “That boy is a thief who attacked my son, and I want him out of this school. Armitage deserves a school where he feels safe to attend class instead of being harassed by some juvie reject—”

“ _Excuse me_ ,” Jyn says, and Finn goes stiff under her palm. “Don’t you  _dare_ —”

“Mrs. Hux, I understand that you’re upset about what happened, but this isn’t helping anybody—”

“Finn,” says Cassian, and Mothma goes abruptly quiet. “Did you take Armitage’s laptop?”

“Of course he did,” says Mrs. Hux. “The boy’s a criminal, from what I’ve heard—”

“You shut your mouth about my son,” says Jyn, low and cold. “Right now.”

“Finn,” says Cassian again. He’s softer, this time, somehow. “Did you take Armitage’s laptop?”

Finn looks at Jyn. Jyn looks at Finn.

“I didn’t,” says Finn, quietly. “Sir.”

“Of course he did,” says Mrs. Hux, “to sell it, most likely—”

“I  _didn’t_.” Finn digs his fingers into her wrist, hard enough to sting. “Me and Rey were just walking home, we didn’t do  _anything_ —”

“I  _saw you_ take it,” says Armie Hux. He lisps, just a little. “You jimmied my locker open and you  _took_ it—”

“I wouldn’t want your stupid laptop, I have one at home—”

“That boy,” says Mrs. Hux, “took my son’s laptop out of spite, and I want him expelled, and I want his mother to compensate the cost of the machine—”

“Like hell,” says Jyn.

“Armitage,” says Cassian, but Mrs. Hux shouts over him.

“That boy is a criminal and a thug and I want him removed from this campus immediately, Miss Mothma—”

“This is an exploratory meeting,” says Mothma. She doesn’t raise her voice at all, but something in it—Jyn’s not sure. Mrs. Hux snaps her jaw shut so fast there’s almost a click. “Nothing is going to be decided here. If you aren’t comfortable with that, Mrs. Hux, you can leave, and we will continue exploring options without you present. Is that understood?”

Mrs. Hux says nothing. She huffs, and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Mr. Andor,” says Mothma. “You had a question, I believe.”

“I wanted to know what time Armitage saw Finn bust open his locker.” Cassian leans back against the windowsill, and does not smile. “That’s all.”

“What does that matter? He saw it, that’s the proof you need—”

“Humor me,” says Mothma, and smiles, thin-lipped. “Armitage?”

Armie Hux looks at his mother, and then at Cassian, and says, “I don’t remember.”

“You were in the hallway, clearly,” says Cassian,. “Your locker’s a few yards down from the chemistry lab, isn’t it? Was it morning? Afternoon?”

Armie looks at his mother again. He shrugs. Jyn curls her hand back around Finn’s shoulder, and holds on.

“I don’t see the point of this,” says Mrs. Hux.

“Armitage,” says Cassian. “You saw Finn taking your laptop out of your locker. Were you on your way to class?”

“I guess.”

“Which class?”

Armie shrugs again.

“Why didn’t you tell a teacher?”

“Dunno.”

“You saw Finn break open your locker and steal your laptop and you didn’t tell a teacher?” Cassian cocks his head. “Seems counter-intuitive to me.”

Mrs. Hux bristles. Color flushes up her throat, like she’s being filled with boiling water. “I don’t like what you’re implying, whoever you are—”

“Mr. Andor is one of our history teachers,” says Mothma. Jyn could swear the woman is preening, just a little. “Like I mentioned before, Mrs. Hux, I requested he attend this meeting on behalf of the student disciplinary committee.”

“Why is Armitage the one being interrogated here?  _That boy_  is the criminal—”

“If you don’t mind,” says Cassian, “I’d like him to finish his story. Surely you won’t object to that?”

Mrs. Hux snaps her mouth shut again.

“Art,” says Armie. “Third period. Before lunch.”

“Monday morning, third period. That’s when you saw him take it?”

“Yeah.” Armie shifts, and sniffs. “Yeah.”

“And when did you talk to your friends?”

“I talked to Ben in art class. Told him what happened.” The kid shrugs. “He talked to some guys in the high school division. Y’know. They wanted to make sure I’d be okay. Talking to him.”

“I wouldn’t have  _done anything_ ,” Finn bursts out, and Jyn digs her nails into his shoulder. “I didn’t go  _near_ your stupid locker—”

“You’re sure it was third period,” says Cassian again. “Absolutely sure.”

“ _Yes_ ,” says Armitage. He looks at his mother, and then at Finn. “He took it out of my locker, third period, on his way to chemistry class or something, I don’t know. Maybe he ditched. I don’t know what kids like him do during school, but it was definitely Finn.”

“Finn was in class with me during third period on Monday,” says Cassian, without inflection. “World history. Third period, Monday morning. We were talking about the Ottoman Empire. Finn turned in a paper on its fall during and after the First World War. I have him marked in my attendance book.”

Armitage Hux says nothing. Mrs. Hux is scarlet. Finn looks like all the holidays in the world have just smashed together into a piñata.

“Thank you, Miss Erso,” says Mothma. The corner of her mouth ticks up. “If you and Finn will wait outside for a few minutes, I’d appreciate it.”

There should be something to say, she thinks. She should hvae something to say. When she stands up, though, there’s nothing. Jyn nods, and in spite of herself her eyes flick to Cassian, where he’s still skulking by the window, his head down, hair kind of draping in front of his eyes. He’s watching her, she thinks. Without blinking. 

Jyn dips her head to him, just once, and pretends her heart isn’t twisting in her chest. 


	4. Chapter 4

“Mom—”

“Kitchen,” says Jyn, and accidentally sends a half-written email. “ _Fuck_.”

“You shouldn’t swear,” says Finn, stirring something on the stove. Finn had decided that he was going to learn how to cook about two months into him being placed with her. “Someone in this place should be able to make something edible,” he’d said, when she’d asked why, and—yeah. It’s logical. Jyn feels silly and small for being jealous of the fact that a thirteen year old boy is better at cooking than she is. Then again, she’s also sensible, and if it means Finn keeps cooking (and if it means she gets to see evidence that they’ve both eaten) she’ll gladly sit and supervise while doing other work.

“Don’t start with me,” says Jyn, and Finn smothers a smile behind his wrist.

“Mom!”

“Kitchen!”

Rey’s voice goes high and wheedly at the end. “ _Mom_ —”

“ _Kitchen_!”  She whacks at her computer. “Fucking _emails_ —”

“Swearing,” says Finn under his breath. Jyn points at him with a carrot stick.

“I will end you.”

Finn snorts and goes back to fussing with the oregano.

“Mom,” says Rey again, and at least she’s in the door frame this time. Her hair’s wet and tangled, dripping onto the shoulders of her T-shirt. “Your phone—”

“Jyn,” says Jyn.  

“ _Jyn_.” Rey rolls her eyes. “Your phone keeps buzzing. And I finished my homework. And I forgot to give you this earlier, but I was supposed to. Can I play Prey now?”

“What is it?”

“Parent-teacher conference stuff. Mr. Andor told me to give it to you when I came home. I forgot. I had to do everything.” Rey flaps the little blue slip of paper at her until she takes it. On her computer, there’s a _ding._ _New message from: Mara Jade._ “Can I play Prey now?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Finn, at the stove, scoffs under his breath.  

 _Parent-teacher conference notice._ A week from yesterday at 4:30pm, and she’s going to have to reschedule her shift at the garage for it but with this much of a cushion she can at least get that done. Mara will be irritated, but Mara’s irritated with everything, and besides, no matter how snippy Mara gets, she’s never once been anything other than cooperative about Finn and Rey’s school obligations.

The signature on the bottom keeps dragging her eyes. _Cassian Andor._

_Call me, please. Please._

“Hey, Mom—”

“Jyn.”

“Whatever.” When Jyn looks up, Finn’s _much_ closer, and holding a spoon of pasta sauce. It’s been just long enough that the split in his eyebrow has started to heal, the bruises have started to fade. His mouth is almost the proper size again. “Try.”

“You don’t need to feed me.” Still, she takes the spoon, sticks it in her mouth and shuffles papers. In the other room, her phone goes off again; Rey must have turned it off vibrate as a pointed _come answer your messages_ , because now there’s the irritating triple-beep of a text alert echoing through the door frame. She needs to clean, Jesus, the kitchen table is covered with bills and her paperwork and Rey’s homework and half a million other things.

“Does it need salt?” Finn fidgets a bit. “I think it needs salt.”

“You’re asking me?” She tosses the notice onto the stack of homework, and stands. “My pasta sauce is nuclear waste.”

“It needs salt.” He bites at his thumbnail, and then peeks at her. “And maybe more thyme.”

“Do we have thyme?”

“That’s that plant that Bodhi gave you.”

“Oh.” The nice smelling one they keep on the kitchen windowsill. “Up to you.”

“Mom?”

They’re not going to give up on this, tonight. Jyn admits defeat. “Yeah?”

“Do you know Mr. A somehow?”

She absolutely does not choke on the spoon. Jyn shuffles to the fridge, and snags one of the cans of seltzer water that Rey and Finn absolutely won’t touch. “I met him at the back to school fete, remember?”

“No, I mean—” Finn pinches off a bit of thyme, and drops it into the pasta sauce. “You act funny when people mention him, that’s all. And you were acting weird at the fete, too.”

“I was tired.” _And I’m not going to tell you any of this, kid._ It’s something years in the past, anyway. It’s not like she even had sex with Cassian Andor—that would have made this easier, somehow, because sex is something she can explain away to herself, not like the emotional scorchmarks that night left behind. Nothing happened, and it was years ago, and she’s not explaining any of this to Finn. Or Rey, for that matter. “That’s all.”

His forehead puckers up. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Making a face.”

“There’s no face.” She really ought to go get her phone, but she doesn’t want to leave Finn unsupervised while the stove is on. Jyn compromises, and heads back to her computer instead. _Subject Line: Assuming that was only half done_. “Did you get one of these notices from your teacher, yet?”

“No. It should come in tomorrow, though.”

“I’ll talk to Mara, then.”

Silence from the stove. When she looks up, Finn is watching her, frowning, thumbnail still caught tight between his teeth.

“You know,” says Jyn, “for a kid, you really shouldn’t look like a drill sergeant.”

“I do not.”

“How’s the pasta?”

“Almost done. Once the noodles are cooked it should be okay.”

Her phone goes off again, and, like clockwork: “ _Mom, phone_!”

“I’m coming.” She snags another carrot stick off the bowl on the table, and points at Finn. “Do not burn the building down.”

“You’ll be gone thirty seconds.”

“Whatever.”

Jyn squeezes Finn’s shoulder, on her way out of the kitchen. He’s not going to let it go, she knows that as well as anybody ever could, but for now, at least, she doesn’t have to think about it.

_Wednesday, 4:30pm. Cassian Andor._

“Fuck,” she says under her breath, and goes to grab her phone.

.

.

.

It’s a half-day for all the middle school students at Yavin Prep—for teachers to cram all their PTCs in, she guesses; even a year into it she’s still kind of new to this whole parenting thing, education wise—which means that Finn stays at home when Jyn and Rey head back out for the school to make her conference on time. They could have just stayed at the school, she supposes, but neither of them wanted to, and she can’t blame them for that. They’ve rerouted their walk home, too, to stay within sight of security cameras and after-school staff, and she can’t blame them for that, either. If she could, she’d come and pick them up every day, but working makes that impossible. She’s either on late at Mara’s garage, or working a shift at the Cantina, and neither of those schedules works well for meeting her kids on their way home from school.

Hux hasn’t tried anything since, not that she knows about. Neither has his mother. They’re still waiting to hear back on if Finn will have to be suspended, but considering the circumstances, Jyn very much doubts it. She’s not sure she wouldn’t burn the school down if they tried to punish him for defending himself, so all’s well that ends well.

“Jyn,” says Rey.

“Hm?”

“You’re muttering.”

Jyn flips on the blinker, and stares at the crosswalk. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The school uniform is a bit too large on Rey. Her sleeves are always dragging just a little around her wrists, like she’s put on a costume. Jyn presses her thumb into the steering wheel, and then shifts to touch Rey’s shoulder. “You’re quiet.”

Rey steals a look at her, and sways. “Thinking.”

“What about?”

She shrugs. “Things.”

Usually with Rey that means anything from talking about Prey (her newest thing, though _new_ in this case means _as long as Jyn has known her_ ) to asking random, invasive questions about Jyn’s past to demanding explanations about car engines, so there’s no real way to respond to it other than “Okay.” The traffic light turns red, and Jyn turns into the parking lot of Yavin Prep. “School things?”

“Do you think Armie Hux hates Finn because Finn is a foster kid?” says Rey. “Or because of me?”

 _Jesus._ If there’s something worse than a gut-punch out there, that’s what just happened to Jyn’s stomach. She swallows. “You think he tries to bully Finn because of you?”

Rey shrugs again. Jyn doesn’t know what to say, exactly. She thinks, or tries to, tries to come up with the words, but when she puts the car into park and turns off the engine, she doesn’t have many. Rey undoes her seatbelt, starts to yank at the handle of the door, and Jyn says, “Rey.”

Rey goes still, and peers at her through her lashes.

“Armitage Hux bullies people because Armitage Hux is a bully,” she says. _How else can I say this?_ “It doesn’t have anything to do with you and Finn. He’s just decided to fix on you two because—” _because you’re both fosters, maybe, or because you’re the only autistic girl in school, or because Finn is one of four black students and the other three are in the high school division, or a million and one other things, who knows_ “—because he’s decided. It’s not your fault. Or Finn’s.”

Rey debates that, in her own head. Her hand loosens on the door to the car.

“I don’t understand it,” she says, finally. “If I didn’t do anything, why does he hate me?”

“Sometimes people are just hateful, I guess.” Jyn leans back in her seat. “Like me.”

“You’re not.”

“I don’t like people.”

Rey sets her jaw, mulish. “Because people are stupid.”

Jyn snorts. “Damn right.”

“Don’t swear.”

“I do what I want, kid.” She undoes her car door. “Let’s go in and get this done so we can get home.”

Cassian Andor’s a history teacher—that much, at least, she remembers—so when Rey tugs her down a side corridor towards a series of classrooms marked _History & Social Sciences _instead of towards the staff rooms, she’s not super surprised. It fits, almost. A classroom instead of the staff room, for a parent-teacher conference. Putting him somewhere he has confidence in, where he’s comfortable. Somewhere she’s never been before. Jyn bites her tongue, and wonders if he did it on purpose.

_You study history?_

_I want to teach it someday._

_Really? You don’t seem the type._

_Why not?_

_Too angry about the present._

“This one,” says Rey, and tugs at her sleeve. Jyn almost jumps.

“Right.”

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she says. _Freaked._ “Are we supposed to wait?”

“Nah,” says Rey, and knocks.

“It’s open,” he says. It’s muffled through the door. “Go ahead.”

Rey, thankfully, doesn’t look back to see Jyn steady herself.

Cassian’s classroom feels like Cassian, she thinks. Or what she remembers of him. A quiet kind of focus, muzzled in fabric, laser-sharp in intent. There are desks, a whiteboard covered in writing, still—a lesson on the Armenian genocide, from the look of it—and a low series of shelves along the wall, some used as cubbies for the students, others just as general bookshelves. A paper pasted to the wall above reads _sign out with Mr. A if you want a book._ Three world maps, each with different sequences of pushpins jammed into different countries, yarn tied between— _the Ottoman Empire? World War One?_ —and then the teacher’s desk up at the front, two chairs before it like being received into an office.

She hates that he looks tired. She hates that she _notices_. She shouldn’t notice something that subtle in how his face sits, in how his eyes dart between her and Rey and back again, but she’s always been good at faces, and exhaustion isn’t all that easy to disguise. Cassian takes off a pair of reading glasses, tosses them onto the desktop, and stands. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Rey says, in a bright voice, and dumps her backpack into one of the chairs. “I brought the book back.”

Cassian darts one last look at Jyn before focusing on Rey. Whatever awkward, desperate look he’d had on the steps into the school last week is gone, now, or at the very least obscured. There’s just a teacher, here. Cassian Andor, history and homeroom teacher, purely professional. _So get control of yourself._ Jyn bites the inside of her cheek, and watches Rey hand the book off. “You only took it out two days ago.”

“I had time, Mr. Darklighter was absent yesterday so we had a substitute and she just had us do worksheets.” She drops her backpack onto the floor, this time. “She didn’t even notice I was reading in the back.”

Cassian looks more amused than chagrined as he says, “You should focus in math, you know.”

“It was worksheets, and they were done.”

“Still.”

He’s good with her. Jyn lets it sink in, slowly. Rey doesn’t babble with many people, and it seems like Cassian Andor is one of them, and that should be more of a relief than anything. It _is_ a relief. She’s just having trouble swallowing, on top of it. When Cassian looks up at her, his face shuttering, just a bit, Jyn just nods.

“Rey,” says Jyn, and Rey looks back up at her. “Can you wait outside for a bit?”

Rey looks between her and Cassian, and then says, “Can I take a book with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” says Rey, and inspects the wall for a grand total of three minutes before finally snagging a book on the Mexican Revolution and darting back out the door again. 

“Thanks for agreeing to this timeslot,” he says. He does not offer a hand to shake, thankfully. She’s not sure she could stand that again. “I know it’s awkward.”

 _Understatement of the century_. “It’s fine.” Jyn sinks onto the empty chair, perching on the very edge. “It wound up working out.”

“Originally I was going to have you come in on Friday but then there was a scheduling change.” He stops, suddenly, like he’s realized he’s said too much, and then sits down. “So.”

Jyn says, “So.”

They look at each other across the desktop for a second or two, and then Cassian coughs.

“Primarily this meeting is to talk about Rey’s performance and what we can do to supplement it inside and outside of the classroom, but in my opinion there’s not a great deal left to discuss. Her grades are good. I think she could be working harder in computer science, and so does her teacher—there’s a note, here, if you want to talk more about that, but she has high grades in almost every other class. The primary issue outside of class is her relationships with other students.”

“Like?”

“Obviously considering the last week or two there’s been some blowback, but even before that there hadn’t been a great deal of integration into the classroom, at least not in comparison to what’s optimal.” Cassian leans back in his seat, and goes through a few papers. “Rey keeps to herself. Normally I wouldn’t be overly concerned, considering how close she is with her foster brother, but there’s been a few small difficulties. I don’t know if she’s talked about them at home.”

Jyn unfolds her hands, scrubs her damp palms against her jeans. _Why on earth did I think wearing my work shoes would be all right?_ There’s oil all over the toes. “Rey tends to—not tell me things.”

“Does she think she’ll get in trouble?”

“No.” It comes out harder than she wants it to, but it’s _true_. Rey knows—or Jyn hopes she knows—that she won’t get in trouble for not having the most active social life. “She—one of her last foster families didn’t react well when she had issues at school. She knows she can talk to me. Sometimes she just doesn’t remember I won’t be angry.”

Cassian scuffs a hand over his stubble, and doesn’t reply right away. He hasn’t quite blinked in the last minute or so. Jyn wonders if he’s trying to work out what to say.

“She doesn’t interact with anyone in her homeroom class,” he says, finally. “And from what I can tell, she doesn’t seem particularly close to anyone in the school, aside from Finn. Like I said, I wouldn’t be too concerned about it—she’s new, and it seems like her home life is a strong support for her, just from what she’s said to me—but some of the other students are ostracizing her.”

It is not acceptable, Jyn tells herself, to want to punch small children. She still does, at least a little.

“It’s not that she’s not friendly, or that she’s had any particular issues with anyone outside of Armitage Hux, and that’s obviously being handled, it’s that the other kids are—not quite sure how to handle her, I think. Whether it’s because some of her behaviors are too unknown to them and they’re not used to her yet, or because of their own preconceptions about children on the spectrum, I’m not sure, but she doesn’t get a lot of interaction with students in any of her classes. She seems all right with it, for the most part, or used to it by now, but I’m—concerned.”

Jyn digests that, slowly. She sweeps hair back out of her eyes. Her knuckles are bruised and torn from getting caught in a motorcycle engine, and she can’t help noticing that Cassian _notices_. His eyes follow her hand back down to the arm of the chair, and then snap away.

“I was thinking both Rey and Finn might benefit from doing an after-school activity, actually,” he says. “To take Rey out of an academic context and see if she gets along with other students better. I’ve brought it up to her once or twice, but she’s been cagey.”

“I work two jobs,” Jyn blurts, and then feels stupid. “I think—I think she wants me to know that she’s home by a certain time. It helps both of us.”

“Understandable,” says Cassian. “I still think it might help her improve socially in the classroom, if she has a place to relax and do something interesting to her with other kids around. The robotics team might be good, but that’s intensive, and as good as she is at math, it’d probably be better to ease her into something more interactive, considering she’s had so many changes in her life over the years.”

That’s one way of saying she’d had twelve foster families in four years, Jyn thinks, but she wets her lips and keeps it between her teeth. “She’s probably told you, but she likes history. And science fiction. And—learning about the world, I suppose. I don’t—know too much about what the school offers for extracurricular stuff along those lines, but—”

Cassian’s eyes flicker again, and Jyn stops. He’s quiet, debating, before he says, “There’s a history club.”

“History club?”

“Yes.” He hesitates. “We’re not too highly ranked, at the moment—there’s another private school that goes to nationals every year—but it’s a tight-knit group of kids. Rose Tico, from Finn’s history class, is in it as well. I think I’ve seen her and Rey talking, once or twice. A handful of other students. I—didn’t want to suggest it immediately, I wanted your input, but—”

“It might work.”

“I run it,” Cassian says, after an even longer pause. “I don’t know if that’s a dealbreaker.”

There’s something there that she can’t afford to chase, right now. Jyn says, “You’re her favorite teacher. I’m sure she’d be fine with it.”

They look at each other again, in silence. Jyn almost says, _Thank you for caring about my kids._ She keeps her mouth shut tight on that.  

“What else do we have to talk about?”  


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but necessary to set up Cassian's state of mind. 
> 
> They'll talk next chapter, I swear. XD 
> 
> CW: some mentions of alcohol and sex.

Wedge doesn't say anything for a long time, after Cassian finishes explaining. Then again, Wedge knows when to press and when not to; he's not like Kei (arguably, Cassian's only other friend in the world, and Cassian's not even sure  _Wedge_ fits that description, per se) who pokes his nose into everything and says whatever comes into his head in an attempt to stumble upon something helpful. Wedge thinks things through before he says them, and it helps.

"Why do you even care?" Wedge says, finally. Cassian grimaces into his mug. It helps  _ninety-eight_ percent of the time. He should have remembered that part.

"I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Don't turtle," Wedge says absently. The coffee shop is empty, mostly. At the other end of the counter, Shara's humming along to the radio, and pretending she isn't eavesdropping. Cassian stares hard at the counter rather than respond. "I told you when this happened, this woman, whoever she is? She has issues, Cassian. And it's not good for you to still be--"

"Still be what?" says Cassian, and Wedge stops. He rubs at his lower lip with his thumb.

"Preoccupied," he says, finally.

Cassian swirls the dregs of his coffee in his mug, and looks at the window. He doesn't usually make the trek all the way out to Alliance--he doesn't have the time, what with grading and lesson planning and trying to keep track of the rest of his life on top of it all--but when he does it feels like slipping into an old skin. He'd been a graduate student, here, not a teacher. Four years can change things.

_Thirty seconds can change things. Ten._

He shakes off the melancholy like an old sweater.

"I'm not preoccupied," he says. Wedge rolls his eyes. Cassian pretends not to notice. "It's fine. It was surprising, that's all."

"You're the one who asked for help," says Wedge.

"I didn't," Cassian says. " _You_ asked if anything was going on with me."

"You're splitting hairs, boys," says Shara, and plonks her elbows onto the counter, hip-checking Wedge to do it. Wedge shuffles over, and collects an empty mug to put into the sink. "Jesus, Andor. You look like shit. I thought you taught at a private school, not in juvie."

He can  _feel_ his lips peeling back from his teeth. He can’t help it, after everything that had happened with the Huxs. "I'm  _fine_ , Shara."

"Don't bite me," says Shara, so mildly that he's surprised he still has an unbroken nose. "If you're not over her, then you need to be."

Cassian leans back, away from the countertop. "It's been four years."

"Because  _clearly_ you've moved on with your life," Shara says. She fidgets with her wedding ring. "You okay?"

He shrugs.

"Right,." Shara straightens up, fixes her hair. "Stick around until the end of the day. We're going out for a drink."

Cassian curls his hands up out of sight of the counter. "Shara--"

"Don’t argue with me when you have a hangdog face." She cocks an eyebrow. "Wedge?"

Wedge pulls a face. "I have a class to teach tomorrow."

"Damn doctorates,” says Shara. “ _One_ beer."

"Never just one," says Wedge, his mouth quirking up, and Shara hip-checks him again. Cassian finishes his coffee, slides off his stool.

"I can't, I have to--"  _regret ever coming out here, really_ "--grade essays for my seventh graders."

"You're making seventh graders write  _essays_."

"It's private school." He dips his head. "Another night."

"Cassian--"

"I'm fine," he says again, and tries to pretend that it's true. "Really, Shara."

"Yeah, sure." Shara frowns at him for a while. "You know you can talk to us, right?"

"Of course," he says. "I'll see you around, all right?"

" _Hasta luego_ ," says Wedge, and Shara punches him in the arm, muttering under her breath. Cassian dips his head, and escapes out the door of Alliance, turning up the street towards the metro station.

It had been a mistake, really. Shara and Wedge have known him for years--he'd babysat Shara's son, for Christ's sake, when Poe had been barely six and Shara had been in undergrad, tearing her own hair out trying to keep up--but there's always been that gap in understanding, when it came to things like this. Cassian's not good at keeping friendships going. It's a miracle (and mostly due to Shara's stubbornness, he thinks) that his relationship with the people in Alliance hadn't fallen apart years before this.

He rubs at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and stops for a crosswalk. Shara and Wedge have been incredibly patient with the whole thing, these past four years. Shara's even tried to get him to date, though Cassian had never been very good at that either, even before the whole incident at the Falcon. It had taken a good nine months in undergrad coming to terms with what people expected and what he actually wanted before he'd finally just given up on the whole dating scheme entirely. He'd thought, for a while, that he just didn't  _connect_ with people that way. Sometimes, he'd swear that the night at the Falcon was just some kind of absurd fever dream, and he  _still_ doesn't know how to connect with people like that.

Someone clips his shoulder with their bag. The crosswalk's flashing. Cassian swears under his breath, trots halfway across the street to catch up with the crowd. He can't explain to Shara and Wedge why this  _matters_ , still, four years later. Maybe  _preoccupied_ really is the right word for it, he thinks, and bites the inside of his cheek, turns left and clatters down the metro stairs. It's the one time in his life that he'd thought, maybe,  _this_ was what books and movies talked about, that kind of sudden electric connection that he'd never felt before that moment or since.

 _Romantic_ , says a tired voice in the back of his mind. It might be Draven.  _There's nothing down that path, and you know it._

Shara's pan, he thinks. Wedge is bi. They're both…not like him, he supposes is the best way to describe it. He'd never bothered going to the QSA meetings like they'd wanted him to, nudging at him with flyers and free cupcakes and maybe a word, for whatever it is he is. He'd tried, in freshman year, more to figure out what he  _wasn't_ than what he  _was,_  and when Wedge had come back to the dorm one night with a flyer about asexuality and aromantics that had clicked and he'd just….quit trying. He'd had everything settled, in his head.

_It's not good for you to still be preoccupied._

_You look angry_ , he'd said, half-buzzed and not thinking. She'd looked at him for a bit, both hands curled around her tumbler of whiskey, and replied,  _so do you_.

 _Maybe there's a reason she's back now._  The train's empty, mostly. It's late on a Thursday night, and nobody bothers to travel on the yellow line, anyway. Cassian drops into a seat in the back of the car, and turns his face to the window.  _Maybe it's the universe trying to tell us something._

He realizes how pathetic it is to think that only afterwards, and scoffs at himself. That, most certainly, is a thought he's never voicing aloud to anybody, let alone Wedge or Shara. He doesn't need them to give him those looks again, like they did after it had all happened, when he'd been angry and upset and stung in a way he'd never once been stung in his life.

His reflection smears in the train window. Cassian rests his brow to the cool safety glass, and shuts his eyes.

 _I don't talk to people because I'm not good at them,_ she'd said. She'd been drunk, but not very, and he'd been buzzed, and it had nearly been three in the morning at that point, and Cassian can't remember everfeeling so  _known_ as he had in that moment, stuck to the bar stool, watching her in dim flickering light.  _Because no matter what I do I fuck up somehow and they leave. So I always thought, no point._

 _Stop it,_  he tells himself, and knocks his head very gently to the shuddering glass.  _Stop it._

He knows how this is supposed to work. They'd never had anything. A conversation. Helping her off a bench at four in the morning, fingers linked. Nothing more than that. Miniscule, in comparison to Shara and Kes, married since they were nineteen and parents since they were twenty. Microscopic, laid alongside Wedge and his casual barhopping, bedmates and socks on doorknobs in undergrad, nothing serious since the high school girlfriend he never speaks of. He can't explain it to them in a way they'd understand, because no matter how hard he's tried, he's never been able to quite put it into words, even to himself.

( _This is my mom,_  Finn had said, almost gleaming with excitement, and Cassian's palms had gone damp and slick, because  _he knew the face,_ and she'd looked so panicked in the instant before she'd wiped her face clean that--)

 _Stop it,_  he thinks again _. Stop it_.  

The train rocks slowly, back and forth. Cassian lets it sway his mind away.


	6. Chapter 6

She didn’t think it was going to work out  _badly_ , per se, but there’s a certain amount of relief in her gut when Rey comes home from the third or fourth meeting of the history club beaming and babbling about a girl named Rose Tico and a museum trip 

“Next Saturday,” Rey says, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Jyn, struggling with the zipper of her jacket, grunts. “Can I go?”

“Which museum?”

“African-American History.” She bounces some more. Out of the corner of Jyn’s eye, Finn creeps into view down the hall. He’s not been entirely sure what to make of Rey joining the history club–he might like  _Mr. A’s_ classes, but he’s more a taekwondo enthusiast than anything. Actually, Jyn’s surprised that  _Rey_ is enjoying the history club so much. Rey’s the type to take apart toasters and microwaves and put them back together again as her weekend activity, not go mad over old flyers from the Second World War. But still. “Can I go?”

“Are you taking the bus?”

“We’re meeting up at the school and taking the metro. Mr. A’s coming with us.”

“So it’s a school trip?”

Rey sucks her teeth. “Sort of? A club trip. But everyone’s going. Mr. A says the Smithsonian museums are free, you just have to schedule tickets for some of them a few days before. And I have a metro pass.”

Right. Jyn’s not much of a museum person. She wins her wrestling match with her jacket, and hangs it, dripping, from the hook next to the front door. “Huh.”

“Can I go?” Rey bounces again. “It’s with Mr. A. And then Rose and me were talking about going to get food after.”

She’s thirteen, Jyn thinks. And Rey can take care of herself. Something clutches at her throat, and eases almost in the same moment. “I have a shift at the Cantina until six, if you want to come there after. So you don’t have to walk back alone from the metro station.”

Rey gives her a look that’s altogether  _too_ self-aware, for a middle school student, but she just says, “Yeah, okay. Can Rose come?” 

Jyn shrugs. "Free country.”

“Sweet.”

“Let me know how it goes,” says Jyn, as Rey darts off.

In the hallway, Finn’s watching her with that weird look again, like he’s trying to put together a jigsaw with only half the pieces.

The Cantina’s kind of a shithole, if she’s being honest about it. Not as much of a shithole as other places she’s worked in her life–this, for sure, has nothing on the Wobani pub up in Maine–but it’s still kind of a shithole, and the people who work there are only granted  _human_ status nominally in the eyes of everything holy. Nobody ever slacks off, at least. Maz would have them out on their ass with their spleens crammed up their noses if anybody tried. It makes up for the sleazeballs at the bar who try to palm handfuls of her ass as she goes by.

 _One more time_. She breathes deep, in and out through her nose _. One more fucking time–_

“Uh-oh.” It’s Lando, eyebrows arched. Jyn’s never been able to decide whether she wants to punch Lando in the face or not. It bothers her sometimes. She  _ought_ to want to punch him in the face. “Scowl power at nuclear.”

“Fuck off,” she says, and in the kitchen, Chewie snorts.

“If it’s table six again I can take it.”

“I don’t need your help,” says Jyn. Maz is fluttering around somewhere in the back. Going over supplies, probably. She’s not about to get fired for reaming out a customer, especially one that keeps whacking her ass, but she’d really rather not let Maz know what’s going on, and Lando will rat her out the instant he thinks he can get away with it. “Go do assistant manager things.”

“I’m  _doing_ assistant manager things,” he says. “I’m making sure our servers aren’t being harassed. That’s an assistant manager thing.”

Jyn rolls her eyes, and jams a plastic cup with far too much force against the soda fountain.

“Jyn, come on.”

“It’s fine.” There’s no crack in the cup.  _Good enough._  She sets it on the tray. “I’ll deal with it.”

Lando puffs out his cheeks, his version of  _I think you’re wrong but I don’t want a broken nose_. “If you say so. I’m just saying. Intimidation is an option if you want it.”

“That I can do all by myself,” she says. “Considering your track record.”

“That was  _one time_.”

“A toddler,” says Jyn, and walks off while Lando makes kettle noises.

“You break anything, Erso, you’re paying for it!”

She flips him off behind her back.

The Cantina’s a place where people pass through, and tonight isn’t much different. It’s not exactly the kind of place that attracts people from the Hill or any surrounding newspapers. She’s pretty sure she served bad bourbon to Jason Chaffetz in disguise once, but that’s just something that happens in DC: you never know who you’re going to run into that you might see on the telly the next day. Tonight it’s fairly quiet: a few businessmen at the back, in one of the booths, making a deal to do with their air traffic control programs or whatever it is Lando keeps blatantly eavesdropping on; a handful of families who went out to the Smithsonian circuit, judging by their new T-shirts; a few locals; the gaggle of Howard Uni students who use the corner table to practice their Spanish conversation and usually bamboozle her with slang she’d be better off not knowing the meaning of. (The last person who openly hit on her, instead of just goosing her ass, wound up with a broken nose and filed a suit against the Cantina. As pissed off as she gets sometimes, she’d rather not have to have Maz settle out of court again because of her bullshit.)

All in all, it’s definitely not the worst job she’s ever had. In conjunction with what she makes from Mara, repairing cars and motorbikes for men who’d rather pretend a manly man does all the greasy work on their engine instead of a bird with too many scars and a stupid tattoo on her hip of a star, she makes enough. Maybe not quite enough to let Rey and Finn do as much as they want, but enough to keep them all comfortable. It’s enough for her.

_What do you want to do?_

She shakes it out of her head, and snaps back over to table six to glare threateningly with a long knife in her hand. Better to head the bastard off at the pass early, before he decides copping a feel is a little less interesting than trying to pin her at the end of her shift.

The three year old at table thirteen has tossed a handful of salsa at her blouse and she’s trying to mop herself up while simultaneously refilling three water glasses when the bell chimes, and Rey’s chatter filters in through the rain. She’s in infodump mode–about  _Prey,_ from what Jyn can tell, she’s talking about aliens and weapons mods and that’s usually  _Prey_  mode–but the girl next to her, a small southeast Asian girl with big eyes and closely bobbed hair, is listening very hard, which is better than anything that Jyn could have imagined. “Excuse me,” says Jyn to table thirteen, and then shoves her tray of water glasses into Aphra’s hands without a word, beelining for the door.

“Hi,” she says, and Rose Tico’s eyes about bulge out of her head. Jyn is not about to imagine what she looks like. “You’re wet.”

Rey shakes her head like a labrador. Water spatters Jyn’s service apron. “It’s raining.”

“I can tell.” She sucks her teeth. “Who’s your friend?”

Rey blinks a few times, and then it rushes back to her, the social thing. She straightens up a little. “Mom, this is Rose. Rose, this is my mom.”

Jyn bares her teeth. “ _Rey._ ”

“She doesn’t like being called Mom,” says Rey, and bares her teeth back. “So she’s Jyn.”

Rose looks about ready to faint, but she steels herself, and says, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Erso.”

“Fuck,” says Jyn, “that’s  _worse._ Both of you go sit in the back before I vomit.”

“She’s fine,” says Rey, happily. “Cheers, Mom.”

“I’m going to dump you off a cliff,” says Jyn, “and I’m not going to tell anyone where to look.”

Rose’s big eyes get even bigger when she takes in Jyn’s stained shirt. “Oh.”

“Go sit, you yokel, I’ll bring you something.” Jyn can’t help it. She scruffs her hand through Rey’s sopping hair, pushing it back out of her eyes. “And a towel. Maz will skin you if you ruin her seats.”

“I can’t ruin vinyl, that’s the whole point of vinyl in a café. Nobody can ruin vinyl with liquid things. Unless it’s acid, I suppose.” Rey frowns at the salsa stain on Jyn’s shirt. “You didn’t have that this morning, did you?”

“You think Finn would have let me out of the house if I had?” Finn’s as scrupulous about laundry as he is about cooking. One of his old families used to make him do most of the chores. Now he just says it relaxes him. She hasn’t pushed the issue, yet. “Go sit.”

“Mr. A should be in in a minute,” says Rey, and then darts off before Jyn can do more than blink. Rose looks between Rey and Jyn, somewhat bemused, before trailing Rey into the corner. Jyn opens her mouth, and then shuts it again before Lando notices.

_You’re fucking kidding me._

The door opens. The bell chimes.

_Fuck!_

She wipes her face clean. She can do that. She knows how to do that. She’s known how to do that since she was a child. Jyn breathes, in and out through her nose, and then turns to face him. His hair is wet (though not as soaked as Rey’s; Rey had probably been prancing about in the thunderstorm the way she usually did, daring lightning to come after her) and the fabric of his coat is damp about the shoulders, but it’s the hesitation that makes her want to spit. He’s eyeing her like a cat about to scratch.

“Hi,” he says, finally.

Jyn, refusing to be intimidated, says, “Hi.”

Cassian awkwardly stands there for a second or two. He says, “I wanted to make sure Rey and Rose made it here all right.”

 _Rey._ Rose, too, but more Rey.  _Don’t make it uncomfortable for Rey._ Jyn nods, and pretends that he hasn’t noticed the salsa stain on her shirt. She bites the inside of her cheek hard to keep her expression from shifting.  _He’s not supposed to be here._  There’s a thin, high voice in the back of her head, one that sounds remarkably like a child.  _He’s not supposed to be here. Not without warning._

She shoves the voice into a box, and locks it.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” says Cassian. He’s interpreted her face right, then.  _Kindly fuck off, Andor._ “I didn’t know this was where you worked. Rey didn’t–I’ll go.”

He’s halfway through turning on his heel when Jyn thinks better of it, and rubs at the bridge of her nose. “Rey will be disappointed,” she says, and doesn’t look at him when he snaps a look at her. “She’s sitting at the back with Rose. I’ll get you a towel.”

“You don’t have to,” says Cassian, but it trails off in a rather pathetic sort of way as she slams through the swinging doors to the kitchen, and ducks down to get more water glasses.

“Well.” Lando leans over the counter, smirking at her a little. “He’s cute.”

“Fuck off, Lando.”

“ _Ouch._ She bites again.” Lando lifts his hands. “Don’t mean to intrude, Jyn, sorry. Just never figured you for the tall, dark, and accented type.”

She’s  _definitely_ going to hit him. Possibly in the next three seconds. “ _Fuck. Off._ ”

“Fucking off,” says Lando, and swans away whistling, hands in his pockets like he’s just scored big in some gambling ring. Scratch hitting him. She’s going to take the baseball bat Chewie keeps under the counter, and she’s going to use it on the windscreen of his car. Jyn fills three glasses with water, snags a handful of dishrags out from beneath the drink fountain, and hipchecks her way back out onto the floor again, ignoring Aphra hissing “ _you owe me, Erso_ ,” on her way in.

Rey is still talking. She’s also stimming, hands flapping back and forth in her happy stim, the one that means  _I’m excited and I’m going to be talking ten thousand kilometers a minute about this for the next five years._ Jyn slows, and watches, for the three seconds she can grab. Rose is still just listening, nodding very seriously as if Rey’s imparting the secrets of the universe. Cassian doesn’t seem to have noticed, really. He’s staring at the menu, and then at the ceiling, and then at the wall, in a show of discomfort she wouldn’t have expected of him. Not after the PTC.

Still. He is in unfamiliar territory.

Something strikingly close to pity swells up her throat. Jyn strangles it with her bare hands.

“Right,” she says, and puts the waters down, dumping the whole handful of towels on Rey’s head. Rey stops flapping, but to laugh, not to flinch. “Report.”

“The museum was good.” Rey disappears under one of the towels, and Rose, after darting another shy, confused look at Jyn, filches one for herself. Jyn refuses to watch what Cassian does. “The United States is bollocks.”

“You’re an American citizen,” says Jyn. “Same as me.”

“Not  _originally_ ,” Rey says, muffled. “We don’t know what I was  _originally_.”

“Yes, you suitcase baby. Mysterious sprog, you.”

Rose’s eyes get very big.

“I was found in an airport when I was six,” says Rey, very matter-of-factly. Out of the corner of her eye, Jyn sees Cassian still. “I don’t remember anything before then. I think my birth parents must have left me there. They said they’d come back and get me, but they never did.”

Rose’s hands curl up into fists on the table. With surprising force, she says, “That’s  _horrible._ ”

Rey blinks at her a few times. “You’re mad. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad at  _you_." 

"Oh.” She darts a look at Jyn. It’s only after Jyn nods that Rey says, “Okay. Cool.”

Rose clenches her fists hard enough to look painful, and then rams right up against Rey’s side to peer at the menu on the table. Jyn could cry.  _Thank fuck. Thank fuck. Thank fuck. It’s working._ She’s not entirely sure Rey’s even realized, but it’s working.  _She might have a friend now._ Other than Finn. Someone else she can lean on.  _Thank fuck._

Cassian’s still watching her. Jyn can’t help it. She catches his eye, and nods once.

He looks at the table instead.

“Museum,” says Jyn, and taps at Rey’s shoulder. “Good?”

“Horrible,” says Rose, not Rey. “People are horrible. But interesting.”

“That was the point,” says Cassian, without inflection. “History isn’t pretty. But it can show us patterns.”

“Yeah, you said.” Rey looks up at Jyn, and then peeps at Cassian, back and forth. “Mr. A knew more about the exhibits than the museum proctor did. He kept explaining things.”

“Really,” says Jyn, and tries not to feel uncomfortable. “It’s good that he’s teaching you, then.”

“If we go to the Museum of the American Indian for a field trip, you should come.” Rey looks completely blasé, but there’s a hint of— _something._  Not quite the cunning Finn has, the willingness to sneak. Rey looks  _schemey_.  _Christ, not both of them. Tell me Rey hasn’t noticed the oddness, too._ “You could help.”

“I don’t know if I can get the day off anytime soon.” She  _refuses_ to look at Cassian. “I’m going back to the kitchen, for a minute. I’ll be back.”

“’kay.”

She has no shame left, apparently. She bolts.

Jyn’s halfway to the kitchen doors and halfway to freedom when she hears the footsteps behind her. Aphra’s peering at her through the gap in the doors, and she’s  _laughing,_ a little, the way she always does when someone else is in for a hell of a lot of shit. “Jyn,” Cassian says, “wait a second,” and she’s not so much of a coward that she can ignore that. Not when it might come down to a fight. She slows, and then stops, and wishes that her shirt weren’t ruined. She wishes that she could run. He looks tired, all of a sudden, and lost, even if it’s just in hints—the lines around his mouth, the hidden tension in his shoulders when he puts them back. Like a soldier, she thinks. Regimented to keep the fear at bay.

“What,” she says, when he stands there watching her for too long. Cassian’s shoulders hitch, just a little. His hands fall loose at his sides.

“I wasn’t planning on organizing the class museum trip for at least another six months,” he says. He’s all clipped, now. “You don’t have to worry. If we need a volunteer, one of the other parents can do it.”

She jerks her chin up, and wipes her hands absently on the apron she has to wear. She can’t remember how they wound up so damp. Words fly out of her head. “Right.”

He hesitates. She can see it in his hands, more than anything. His fingers curl, and uncurl. “I’ll make an excuse to Rey,” he says. “I won’t make you uncomfortable.”

For some reason that, more than anything, is what snags on her temper. Jyn breathes, deep, in and out through her nose, but her control’s already shattered. She snaps, “For  _fuck’s_ sake,” and the family that had been sitting at table thirteen, halfway out the door, all yip in unison. Cassian blinks once. “This is  _stupid._ ”

“What is?” he says, but his voice is too tight to quite be calm.

“ _This._ ” She glances over his shoulder, but Rey hasn’t noticed. She’s still chattering with Rose Tico. “This—stupid dancing thing. It’s  _stupid._ ”

Something flickers in his face. She thinks it might be his temper. “I wasn’t going to mention it.”

“You can’t teach my kids if you’re always going to act like I’m about to explode,” says Jyn. “This doesn’t  _work_  if we keep doing this.”

“Keep doing what?”

She gestures, pointlessly, at the air between them. “Whatever the fuck  _this is_.”

Cassian’s mouth goes tight. He looks back at Rey, now, too, faster, more subtle. She’d barely notice if not for the fact that he turns away from her to do it. He says, “I wasn’t aware there was an issue.”

“Jesus Christ, Cassian, you’re not stupid.”

Cassian blinks again. It’s different, somehow. Like shock, instead of evaluation. She’s not sure where the difference lies. Maybe in the speed. He swallows, barely visible.

“Look,” says Jyn. She roots herself to the ground, and thinks of Saw, of Steela’s photograph on the mantle. “My kids like you. That–they trust you. They don’t trust a lot of people. I’m not going to fuck up one of the best teachers they’ve ever had because of something that happened years ago.”

There’s another flicker, then, in his mouth. Cassian puts his hands behind his back. “I see.”

“They’re not stupid. They’ll notice something’s up, if they haven’t already. If  _this_ —” she jams a fist into the empty space, again “—keeps happening. So it  _can’t._ Anymore. Otherwise they’ll work something out, and even if they’re wrong, it’ll just keep making things worse until we can’t do a damn thing for them, no matter what we want.”

He weighs that, carefully. Cassian looks at her, unblinking.

“Truce, then,” he says, in an odd voice.

He holds out his hand.

Jyn looks at it, at his long fingers and the skin of his palm. She looks up at him, too, and sees a question there she’s not sure she can answer. Still, she reaches out, and takes it, as firm a handshake as she’s ever given in her life. Twice, up and down, and then he lets go first, shoving his hand back into his pocket and watching her like she’s a Rubik’s cube. Like she’s a puzzle to be turned and contorted until it makes sense.

She turns.

“You’re a good mother,” Cassian says. He blurts it, almost. “They love you very much.”

Jyn jerks her shoulder in an acknowledgment, and vanishes into the kitchen. She can’t find the daring to look him in the face. Not after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Since the first chapter was originally a prompt fill on Tumblr, the first few chapters are slightly choppy. Apologies. 
> 
> Read the fic in its original form at shu-of-the-wind.tumblr.com/tagged/foster_care_au


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